He settled himself on the white plastic garden chair that was the only furniture in the place. He rubbed with the chipped black paint of his fingernails the inside of his thigh and he drank from the beaker.

‘Would we say three-fifty, Doggie?’

‘Don’t mind your fuckin’ shite-talk!’

His mood had switched instantly, as was the Mannion way, from playful to like he was going to murder you.

‘Said don’t mind the auld talk, Mull! Come in here and look at me like scum? Ye want my money but the way ye look at me? Like I’m a piece of fuckin’ shit? All I’m to ye fellas is euro! Ye fuckin’ bitches! I open my door! I offer ye the full fuckin’ courtesy of my home! I …’

He rose and went out to his patio again. The brothers watched as he swayed out there. He looked over the waters of the lake. Patrick felt the cold dread you’d get always on a visit to The Dog but the breeze changed outside and the anger seemed to melt again: Doggie had been took by gentle thoughts.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, returning to the room. ‘I get … upset in meself sometimes. I have too much love in my heart! That’s the only problem with Doggie Mannion! All I want is to spend some time with ye. Would ye not take a little drink with me?’

‘I’m off the juice,’ said Tee-J. ‘Head doctor’s orders.’

‘We’ve a rush on, Dog.’

‘Ah I know,’ said The Dog. ‘’Course my problem is I have no off-button. Are ye smellin’ that by the way?’

True enough there was the queerest smell in the place. To Patrick, it was like you’d get in a welder’s yard. Or maybe like a quik-dry foam-filler if you got it on your hands.

‘What’s it, Dog?’

Doggie winked.

‘I’m cookin’,’ he said.

‘Hah?’

‘Ye’re lookin’ at the cunt,’ he said, ‘who’s going to bring crystal methamphetamine to the County Leitrim. And ye’re the boys’ll help me.’

Patrick had that feeling – that the control of the night was getting away from him.

‘Dog …’

‘Hush, babies, hush,’ said The Dog, and with a finger to his lips he led them towards a back room. Stronger the smell got as they came nearer to it.

Not a half-hour later the outlaw Mullaneys were headed for town in the Hitachi with two hundred euro to their name from the DVDs and seventy-seven rocks of methamphetamine, fresh-cooked, neatly packed in baggies, eleven baggies, seven rocks to the baggie. Tee-J was reading from an internet printout that Doggie had given them.

‘It’ll make a buck massive horny,’ he said. ‘A buck’ll ride for twelve hours flat off a this stuff, Patch!’

Would you not, thought Patrick, get a bit cheesed off with twelve hours’ worth of riding?